The University of New Hampshire is a pretty pricey, fancy college, but I wouldn't go there if you paid me.

That's because of their "Bias Free Language Guide."

It covers "microagressions" -- including "micro-insults" -- plus offenses against "ageism, sexism, racism" and other "-isms."

The guide gets off to a bad start with its dubious definition of "democracy" and goes downhill from there. It's Orwell's 1984 except it isn't fiction.

Here's an actual example from the guide:

You shouldn't say "Dogs smell funny" in front of a blind person with a seeing eye dog.

Another "problematic" word? "American."

A major contributor to the guide is Melissa Harris-Perry, a pundit on far left MSNBC who, among other things, wore tampon earrings on the air and mocked interracial adoption. Is this the intellectual and moral role mode a university needs?

Anyway, after this 5000 word guide showed up on their website, something interesting happened...

Newspeak. It just came a little later than predicted by George Orwell (1984), but it’s here now. It didn’t happen all at once. It crept up on us gradually as the cultural Marxist PC mentality gradually increased. But now it’s here: total language fascism. Does anybody out there have a time machine? I’d like to go back to the pre-fascist 60’s.

Ezra – has just described the real reason why most people prefer to associate with their own, live with their own,hire their own. It is the fear of offending.
It is socialist do- gooders that create all these problems. Most people already know how to get along and be friends.

So Terry, your argument hinges on the penalty applied by the university. TWU could expel a student for breaking their moralities rules, so if UNH has a similar penalty for someone breaking their version of morality rules the same condemnation can be found coming from you as you have given to TWU, right? See Glenn’s post, and check out the link.

Terry, If you found that interesting you might want to read the other cases on theFIRE site…or subscribe to the ACCURACY IN ACADEMIA newsletter…..http://www.academia.org

I get updates several times a week from them telling me that the fact men get pitch forked by feminists in post secondary institutions happens all the time and has been happening….as you noted…for a long time…and as you inferred…it really isn’t news.

One of the things I said in my “caricature” of the CBC news was “In the news today somebody said/did something that has feminist panties in a knot and somebody must be punished”…..

You know what Terry? If the CBC were to stop doing that I just might loose my zeal to have them defunded. But my zeal will always be a reflection of theirs.

To put things to the point…..ALL speech codes and guidelines tend to be invoked most often by feminists.

TheFIRE.org, if you are not familiar, is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education founded in 1999. Christina Hoff Sommers is on the board. Just read the case histories on their site if you think Orwellian Newspeak is not an issue on campus. And that it where ALL Orwellian Newspeak policies trickle down from.

I think it fair to say that John Carpay was probably inspired by theFIRE when he founded the JCCF which takes on similar cases in Canada.

Now we all know that you are not supposed to yell FIRE in a crowded theatre….but if you can hack into the PA system in your dorm….play this for the speech invigilators….

Hey Terry would you equate the provincial law society’s refusal to recognize TWU grads as lawyers to a “ban” on acting as lawyers in that province? It effectively bans the TWU grads from practicing as lawyers, if the law society won’t allow them to practice law, doesn’t it? I call such action a ban, and IMHO logical concepts agree with my label. Now, Ezra, he’s not banning anything. He doesn’t even say the word ban, as far as allowing the school to operate, or it’s grads from … well, anything, really. The only thing Ezra talks about being banned is the examples of doublespeak he gives from the school’s thought control list. He’s not saying the school shouldn’t be able to do this. He’s not suggesting that anyone who graduates from that school should somehow be unqualified for whatever because the school has some kind of rules for it’s students. He’s just saying he would never go to that school himself and suggests that it wouldn’t be appropriate for others either. It still comes down to individual’s rights and responsibilities. If you don’t want to go to that particular school, and pay their fees, and live by the rules they put out for their students/staff/faculty, then don’t. Same as TWU. I’m sure there are people, even people in the various law societies, who are pissed off by UNH’s ridiculousness. But it would be even more ridiculous for anyone to seriously consider not allowing UNH grads from doing whatever they received training and instruction at that university for. You don’t seem to have a problem with UNH’s rules, but you also have no problem with the law society’s “ban” on TWU grads for voluntarily submitting to the rules put forth by that institution. Kinda looks like a double standard to me.

To the left, words people use are a lot like blinking directional signals on cars.
Those whose speech is “in compliance and up to date” with the latest twists and turns
of Marxist hairsplitting are to be accorded some respect. Those who seem out of date
would be looked at more closely to determine if they are merely in need of encouragement
to keep current or are in fact, reactionary enemies of the people.

UNH was of special interest to the men’s movement a few years back because in the same week they tolerated feminists reciting castration advocacy poetry while wearing scissors as a pendant around their necks, they kicked a young male out of his dormitory and made him sleep in his car in the parking lot in the chill of October/November. This for the offence of posting a notice next to the elevator on the third floor suggesting that the elevator was overused and students should consider taking the stairs to work off the ten pounds students tend to put on in their freshman year.

It became a widely blogged about thing in the “manosphere” I interceded directly by counselling the student AND sending open letters to UNH’s legal representatives.

A former alumnus of UNH and one of my colleagues in the men’s movement also happened to be the state policy advisor on men’s issues and between us we got justice for this student.

UNH is indeed a hotbed of PC and ….does not top the list of places we advise men not to attend….but comes close behind Cornell and Duke.

The only question I would have is, is the “Bias Free Language Guide” just a guide or is it going to be enforced? And if they’re going to enforce it, just how are they going to do that? I believe it’s absolutely unenforceable, so really, it’s irrelevant. Silly self-righteous people will do silly things and try to impose silly self-righteous rules, because that’s what silly self-righteous people do. They have a right to their values, and if they own the University they have a right to “try” and impose a code of conduct on their students… good luck with that. I believe the average student at that University will just ignore the guide and carry on with their studies. I know that’s what I would do. But if I’m going to defend Trinity Western University in their right to have a Christian based code of conduct, what right do I have to criticize the University of New Hampshire for having their Bias Free Language Guide, even as silly as I may think it to be? Students probably have the right to ignore it, and if not, they have the right to attend another University. No one is forced to go there, and no one can be forced to comply. I think this is tempest in a tea cup, a complete non-issue.

Sorry Ezra, we cannot change Manchester to Personchester, why you ask? Simple, person has these three deadly letters arranged thus, —-son, and we all know that the word son is masculine. Oh, what to do?

Dear Charleton: You know, you CAN look words up on line these days, if you don’t actually own a dictionary. But no problem, I’ll be happy to help you out here. I’ll even do better than “define”, because I’m all about the clarity: I’ll provide you with an illustrative example.
Now, Charleton: can you distinguish between the following two sentences?
a) "University’s Free Speech Bias Guide BANS…
b) University’s Free Speech Bias Guide provides optional, alternative phrases for…
See the difference there?

As an international person of moderately advanced age who is somewhat of size, I am very happy that nice people with some social and academic advantages prepared this wonderful language Guide for me so that I am able to wipe out old perceptions which are frozen into language and force me to look at the world in an old-fashioned way. I do not want my language to be a barrier to human progress. I want everybody to feel utterly happy about their chosen identities. Diversity, inclusion and equity! This is my mantra now. I do not wish to micro-assault, micro-insult and micro-invalidate anyone, and I have to be extra careful because I am still concentrating on learning the English language, as an international person, therefore I will make mistakes and I may hinder human progress. I shall teach my children, who are not same gender loving, and never underwent a gender reaffirming surgery how to use the correct pronouns as described in the Gender Pronouns Guide carefully prepared by organizations like the National Center for Transgender Equality and GLAAD whose main purpose is to foster human achievements. I feel much more confident now when conversing with a Canadian individual! Isn’t life now so much easier that nice people tell me what I should say, and therefore determine what I can think about? This sure is human progress!

My view is that we need to empower student language, teach debate, require students to learn how to argue all sides of all issues. And to not take offence no matter how offensive the speech.

That is not to say they should not criticize offensive speech but that they should do so in a way that defeats its users’ intent to offend. That is to say, they should engage a counter-offensive tactic.

Accordingly, instead of requiring no one say “dogs smell funny” in front of a vision-impaired person with a service dog (but it’s okay to say it behind his/her back??), encourage the vision impaired to respond with pithy rebukes like “I may not be able to see you, but I can smell you a mile away because you smell overpoweringly like dirty ass”. Or, “I can wash my dog but no cleanser exists that can rid you of your filthy ignorance”.

Why discriminate against vision impaired? They can use words to offend – and to self-defend – as well as the fully sighted. Requiring special rules to use with certain groups is a form of bigotry intended to exclude. Surely that is the real offence here.

As for those who lack facility with words, finely executed gestures can be just as effective.

Be A Rebel

Sign up here to be a part of The Rebel. The fearless source of news, opinion, and activism that you won't find anywhere else! Get our weekly newsletters, sign petitions, and participate in the latest discussions on The Rebel.